Barclays Launching Mobile Payments Service to Compete with Android Pay

August 30, 2016

Barclays is rolling out its own contactless payment service for Android phones this summer, enabling customers to pay at over 400,000 locations in the UK and placing the bank in direct competition with the upcoming launch of Android Pay.

The service, simply called ‘Contactless Mobile’, will build upon the functionality launched to Barclaycard customers earlier this year and will see Barclays become the first UK bank to offer its own integrated service enabling contactless payments for both debit and credit cards via Android smartphones.

Customers will be able to set up and manage the service within the Barclays Mobile Banking app, with users able to pay up to £30 (the standard contactless limit) without any need for authorisation, and up to £100 by entering their standard PIN through the phone.

The rollout of the service, which will have a phased launch across customers in June, puts Barclays in competition with Google’s Android Pay system, which is set to launch in the UK at some point this summer, and could significantly reduce the adoption rate of Android’s payment solution among Barclay’s customers, and encourage other banks to make similar pushes into the mobile payments market.

“Giving customers the choice about how to make everyday payments while making it really easy for people to use our services is why we’ve designed this new contactless payment functionality which will sit at the heart of our already popular mobile banking app,” said Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays UK. “It’s all there, in one place, ready to go with no need to enter card details, delivering a brilliant experience in an instant.

“Barclays Contactless Mobile is the latest in a series of digital innovations we have launched that allow customers to ‘pay it your way!’ – carrying out day-to-day transactions in the ways that suit them and we hope that it will help customers become more confident using digital solutions and new technologies.”